most important part of your website

[evulish]

I guess I'm the only one who thinks the target audience is the most important part of a website. While content IS important, you have to know who your audience is and what they want from your site. That should be the first thing you figure out when you start a site. You need to make your content targeted to the specific people you want to be at the site. I think that before you start a site, you should create a specific and simple objective for your site, and if it doesn't accomplish that objective, you've missed the mark.

I know a lot of teams like to do the whole 'complete FIRST package' website with a blog, forum, guestbook.. all that stuff.. but how much of it is actually used and read? I think it would be nice to see teams take a more professional approach towards their sites and try to sell their team like pitching a company to investors or consumers.

IMO, targeting > content > navigation (we'll throw accessibility in there), > feedback/functionality (I've noticed that these two are pretty much tied together) > traffic > maintenance (as long as it's not broken) > graphics.

You can have everything else besides targeting the right audience and have your entire site flop. I've seen it happen.